Your Hybrid Event Questions Answered

Following our Hybrid Event Masterclass series which we ran last year, it would be reasonable to suggest that we’ve become experts at hosting hybrid events. So, if you have any questions, you know who to talk to.

In the meantime, we thought we’d share 15 of the most common questions we’ve been asked, starting with the most obvious:

1. What is a hybrid event?

In principle, a hybrid event brings together both virtual and in-person attendees and presenters – via a live online streaming platform.

2. How is it different from a virtual event?

The main difference is that a hybrid event also includes in-person attendees (or an audience).

3. What are the benefits?

In short, a hybrid event is the best of both worlds – enabling people from remote locations to attend virtually and those who prefer to visit in-person to experience the event face-to-face; increasing your event’s overall attendance. They are also easily scalable, cost-effective and can deliver greater levels of insight (through data collection)

4. What are the challenges of a hybrid event?

It’s important to keep both online and in-person attendees equally engaged through relevant content. This is one of the reasons why etc.venues has partnered with Glisser – a state-of-the-art software platform which optimises the experience for all attendees.

5. Why has etc.venues partnered with glisser?

By combining our tech-enhanced venues with Glisser’s platform, you can enjoy a truly seamless Hybrid Meeting experience (as demonstrated during our Hybrid Masterclass Event broadcast from London and New York!).

6. Can etc.venues manage everything?

We formed the partnership to remove the need for clients to find multiple suppliers. If you want to run a hybrid meeting or event, you will save plenty of time and effort as you only need to contact one provider: etc.venues

7. How do you organise networking at hybrid events?

Our audience engagement tools and features are available for both in-room and virtual delegates. There are a number of features that can be used to ‘close the gap’ between the virtual and physical networking experience.

8. What are the networking limits?

There are no limits to the number of ‘rooms’ you can create, and these can contain web conferencing options.

9. What technology do virtual attendees require to join an event?

All that’s required is an internet connected device that has a web browser. There’s never anything to download.

10. Can I manage the quantity (and quality) of questions during a live Hybrid event?

You can ‘moderate’ questions before they appear in the audience feed; they can be accepted, rejected or highlighted. When questions are answered we suggest you archive them so they are no longer on screen and stored for future review.

11. Can I use captions in my live stream?

Our platform integrates a product called Wordly which can take your presenter audio and caption it in real time, using AI. It can then translate those captions in many different languages. The captions appear in the sidebar, rather than over the video stream itself.

12. Can you platform support live simultaneous translations?

Yes, this is possible via the Wordly integration.

13. Does your platform offer team building games in addition to polls?

Yes, there are a few gamification options. We can run quizzes that feature delegates’ scores on leader boards. We also have a lottery function that selects audience members at random to win prizes.

14. If I run a pay to watch event, how do I stop other people getting the link and watching without paying?

We can whitelist an attendee ID which prevents anyone not on that whitelist participating. We can also integrate this with your registration platform, so each attendee gets a personalised link sent to them.

15. How would one deal with CPD attendance certification?

Our tools don't just show who turned up, but whether they were an active participant. You can also use the quiz functionality to include a test that checks whether an attendee was paying attention. Finally, you can include the CPD certificate at the end of the slide deck, so it's distributed automatically when the session ends.

To learn more about hybrid events, or to make an enquiry, contact our team of experts.